Kerry backs 'biting' sanctions on Iran

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who for the last two weeks has loudly been calling for sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, received strong backing Monday when visiting US Sen. John Kerry supported the move.

Kerry, the powerful head of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, said he “absolutely” supported sanctions against Iran’s energy industry.

“I believe that the most biting and important sanctions would be those on the energy side,” Kerry told a press conference, after meeting Netanyahu.

The senator said there were other sanctions that should be considered, such as financial ones, but he thought that those against the energy sector were “of particular importance.”

In the past two weeks, Netanyahu has been continuously calling for sanctions against Iran’s export of oil and import of refined petroleum products, saying that anything less would be ineffective. Up until Kerry’s comments, the prime minister’s call had not been echoed by anyone.

Last week, Russia said it opposed paralyzing sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, and although US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for “crippling sanctions” a few weeks ago, this has never defined.

Kerry said there was “no one in the US Congress not deeply concerned about the steps Iran is taking, not just with respect to the nuclear enrichment program, but also with respect to its relationship with other countries in the region.

“We are deeply concerned and talks are ongoing with allies, the Quartet, China and obviously at the UN, to press forward with sanctions if there is not a change in behavior.”

Kerry said those sanctions should be “rigorous, biting, real, multilateral and need to be imposed with the intent of allowing the Iranians to begin to understand what its choices are.”

Kerry said that Teheran would make a “great mistake if they shortchange, misunderstand or misinterpret the full intent of this administration or Congress to hold their behavior accountable.”

The senator said that while a nuclear Iran poses a direct threat to Israel and the region, the issue is much larger than that.

“All of us who want a world with less nuclear threat know one thing for certain: the road to that safer world does not lead through a nuclear Teheran,” he said.

Kerry said that if the UN does not approve sanctions, the US and “a number of powerful allies will move on their own.”

Asked by xxThe Jerusalem Post whether he was concerned Israel would take unilateral actions or whether he had relayed that concern to the prime minister, Kerry said Israel and the US were “talking from the same page.

“I think he is very tuned in to not being rash, or jumping the gun here, or doing something that doesn’t give these other opportunities [to stop Iran’s nuclear development] a chance,” Kerry said of Netanyahu.

Referring to a parade of visits by high-ranking US officials to Jerusalem in recent weeks, which will culminate next week with the scheduled arrival of US Vice President Joe Biden, Kerry said one of the reasons for the quantity of the dialogue “is to make sure we are all on the same page, that we are all clear about what time frames may exist, or may not exist, what threat levels may be real or not real, or what options may be on the table for us. I think we are on the same page.”

Kerry said he found Netanyahu “tremendously supportive of the initiatives we are taking right now, and that other countries are taking, and very hopeful they will have an impact. I think he is very much speaking from the same page as the rest of us.”

On other issues, Kerry said he hoped the present tension in the West Bank over the inclusion of Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in a list of heritage sites to be preserved was just a “rough moment, a hiccup” that could be overcome on the way to renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Kerry said that access to the sites – which he said were important to Jewish and Muslim understanding of their “history, culture and religions” – was shared.

Saying that he thought what Netanyahu did in placing the tombs on the list of heritage sites was “understandable” within the context of trying to “preserve and renew” the Jewish components of the sites, Kerry added that “the timing and manner of the announcement needs to be taken into account in the future context of trying to move people to dialogue.”

Kerry said that the move “certainly lends itself to misinterpretation without adequate explanation, and I think there is an explanation, and I think you have to be careful with these things. My caution as we go forward is we have to be thoughtful about everything we say and do, so that we keep a dialogue on track.”

Regarding that dialogue, Kerry, after meeting Netanyahu on Monday and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday in Amman, said he was “convinced that there is a willingness in both governments to try to move forward in respect to dialogue.”

Kerry said that he was hopeful that over the next weeks and months “the process can reach a critical point where it is possible for our administration in Washington and the government here to announce something positive.”

Meanwhile, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, issued a statement Monday calling the decision to include Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs on the list of heritage sites as “detrimental to attempts to re-launch peace negotiations.

“The European Union calls on Israel to refrain from provocative acts. The European Union recognizes the importance of these religious sites to all three Abrahamic faiths and supports the principle of access for all.”

"...if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned."-J.F. Kerry

"Under questioning from the Committee, Kerry referred to the democratically elected government of South Vietnam -- our allies -- as a "dictatorial regime, the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime," while respectfully calling the North Vietnamese communist regime we were fighting by its oxymoronic official name, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the murderous Viet Cong's political arm by their preferred "Provisional Revolutionary Government.":
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/chavez042804.asp
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June, 1970 -- Kerry joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a national veterans group that is part of the Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice. The PCPJ is a broad coalition of local and national organizations, including the Communist Party, USA, "committed to conducting demonstrations aimed at ending the war in Indochina, and poverty, racism and injustice at home." The VVAW, CCI and PCPJ all have headquarters at 156 Fifth Avenue in New York City. VVAW Executive Secretary Al Hubbard, a former Black Panther, is also on the coordinating committee of the PCPJ. Hubbard soon appoints Kerry to the VVAW's Executive Committee, bypassing the normal election process.
http://www.wintersoldier.com/index.php?topic=Timeline
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Fact: The Black Panthers were revolutionary communists...

From the Maoist Internationist Movement:
[1960s/original] Black Panther Party [BPP] Archives
From the article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS

"On May 1st, May Day [1969], the day of the gigantic Free Huey rally, two of Alioto's top executioners vamped on the brothers from the Brown Community who were attending to their own affairs. These brothers, who are endowed with the revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party defended themselves from the racist pig gestapo [i.e., the police].

Pig Joseph Brodnik received his just reward with a big hole in the chest. Pig Paul McGoran got his in the mouth which was not quite enough to off him.

The revolutionary brothers escaped the huge swarm of pigs with dogs, mace, tanks and helicopters, proving once again that "the spirit of the people is greater than the man's technology."

To these brothers the revolutionary people of racist America want to say, by your revolutionary deed you are heroes, and that you are always welcome to our camp."

Source: Maoist Internationist Movement
Article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS (May 11, 1969):
http://web.archive.org/web/20060717050055/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bpp/index.html
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November 22, 1970 -- During a fund-raising tour for GI deserters, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Black Panthers, Jane Fonda is quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a University of Michigan audience:

"I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would someday become communist," and "The peace proposal of the Viet Cong is the only honorable, just, possible way to achieve peace in Vietnam."
http://www.wintersoldier.com/index.php?topic=Timeline
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John Kerry and the VVAW--Hanoi's American Puppets?
"Two recently discovered documents captured from the Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War strongly support the contention that a close link existed between the Hanoi regime and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) while John Kerry served as the group's leading national spokesman."
http://www.wintersoldier.com/staticpages/index.php?page=puppets
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Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) Complete FBI files:
http://www.wintersoldier.com/index.php?topic=VVAWFBI

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